Nor did the party, whose operations extended over a period of several weeks, confine their attention solely to the coast line. Railway junctions and bridges near the coast, collieries, and even farm-houses were photographed; in fact, the salient features of the countryside bordering the sea were all included in what was altogether a most exhaustive series of pictures.
A certain number of films were developed from day to day at West Hartlepool, something like two hundred pictures in all being dealt with, but these formed only a tithe of the photographs taken, and the undeveloped films, together with the prints from those that had been developed, were despatched direct to Hamburg and Berlin, while some were sent to the head-quarters of the German espionage in Pont Street, London.
Ray Raymond had been engaged watching the house of Hermann Hartmann in Pont Street ever since our discovery of the secret store of arms and ammunition down at Chiswick.
I had been absent at Devonport, keeping observation upon the movements of two Germans who had once or twice paid visits to Hartmann, and who had evidently received his instructions personally. The two men in question were known to us as spies, for with two other compatriots we had found them, only three months before, busily engaged in preparing a plan of the water-mains of East London, in order that, in case of invasion, some of the German colony could destroy the principal mains and thus deprive half the metropolis of drinking-water.
In Leeds they had, we know, mapped out the whole water-supply, as Barker had done at North Shields; and again in Sheffield, the plans of which were in Berlin; but fortunately we had discovered them at work in London, and had been able to prevent them from accomplishing their object. Two of the men had returned to Germany on being detected, and the other two were now at Devonport, where I had been living for a month in irritating inactivity.
One afternoon, on receipt of a telegram from Ray, I immediately returned to London, and as I entered the flat in Bruton Street, my friend said:
"The great _agent provocateur_ of the German Government, our friend Hermann Hartmann, has left for Russia, Jack. His employers have sent him there for some special reason. Would it not be wise for you to follow, and ascertain the latest move?"